Albany ranked as sky-high city

"Local pot culture" plus crime stats and UAlbany land city in a top 10 spot

By JIMMY VIELKIND Capitol bureau

Updated 9:43 pm, Wednesday, April 27, 2011

ALBANY -- Dude. Sweet.

Stoners can lift their heads with pride: Albany was ranked the seventh most pot-friendly city in America by the Daily Beast, a hallucinogenic honor published in this week's edition of Newsweek, its sister publication.

The rankings were based on arrest and usage data culled from federal statistics as well as an assessment of "local pot culture." It's unclear if concrete, drab, modern architecture -- The Egg! -- was considered for inspiring people to get high.

"That's hysterical," said Matt Baumgartner, the owner of Bombers Burrito Bar on Lark Street as well as other drinking establishments. Bombers' Lark Street location was cited as a good "munchies" spot, which came as little surprise to him: On April 20, a holiday on pot smokers' calendars, it gave away free burritos.

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"We have a whole rolling fatties campaign. We pair ourselves up pretty well with the pot-smoking community," he said, freely admitting he was high last weekend. "Having worked behind the counter, I can say that there are thousands and thousands of people who come who are high as a kite. They're actually my favorite kind of customer because they're friendly, they're happy ... I'll take someone who is high over someone wasted on tequila any day."

The Daily Beast chose to rank its stoner cities more empirically. Sixty percent of the weighting came from the number of citizens estimated to have puffed the magic dragon at least once a month, as recorded in survey data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It found 10.34 percent of us have recently been high.

The pot capital of the country was judged to be Tallahassee, Fla. Also in the top 10 are Boston (2), Burlington, Vt. (6), and Manhattan (8). Albany also smoked upstate cites Ithaca (22), Binghamton (27) and Buffalo (28).

The survey concluded, "Many of the top 40 towns are home to large universities, where the habits of young students affect the overall atmosphere." Albany is home to the University at Albany, which has been ranked as a top party school by other publications.

Over 40 people -- including several UAlbany students -- have been arrested or cited in connection with a beer-soaked riot the morning of the city's St. Patrick's Day parade.

"It's probably the college kids, more or less, but I don't think those kids were stoned," said Matt, a 27-year-old city man who declined to give his last name so his parents wouldn't read in the paper that he smoked up Monday night.

"I think because so many people understand and just don't care," he said. "In like, the Bible Belt states, people think it's like heroin."